The present invention relates to a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus for managing lots of a plurality of inline lot processes when a wafer which is undergoing the lot process is recovered to a carrier for the purpose of recovering defective wafers or examination of printed patterns, and a device manufacturing method using the apparatus.
Conventionally, in inline conveyance of a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus, there are cases where the apparatus recovers a defective wafer (wafer that is being exposed) produced at odd intervals or recovers a wafer (exposed wafer) for examination of printed patterns in a prescribed cycle during a plurality of lot processes by instruction of a console. Thus, the wafer is recovered to a carrier even when a wafer of another lot is already present in the carrier. That is, wafers are recovered to the same carrier independently of their lots.
According to the above operation, however, the operator must record information related to the lots processes of each of the wafers in the carrier, and unclear information of each of the lots processes sometimes occurs. In this case, the operation efficiency of the operator becomes low, resulting in trouble in the re-process or lot management of recovered wafers.
The present invention has been made in consideration of the above situation, and has as its object to allow an efficient re-process of recovered wafers in a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus and a device manufacturing method using the apparatus.
In order to achieve the above object, according to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus comprising exposure means for sequentially loading wafers, exposing the wafers, and unloading the wafers, and recovery means for recovering a wafer exposed or being exposed in a carrier in a predetermined case, and comprising storage means for storing information for specifying a slot of the carrier in which the wafer to be recovered is stored and information associated with the wafer in correspondence with each other.
According to the aspect of the present invention, there is also provided a device manufacturing method comprising the steps of sequentially loading wafers, exposing the wafers, and unloading the wafers by exposure means of this semiconductor manufacturing apparatus, and when a wafer exposed or being exposed is to be recovered in a carrier in a predetermined case by recovery means of the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus, storing information for specifying a slot of the carrier in which the wafer to be recovered is stored and information associated with the wafer in correspondence with each other by storage means of the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus.
According to the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus or device manufacturing method of the aspect of the present invention, since the information for specifying the slot in which the recovered wafer is stored and the information associated with the wafer are stored, the recovered wafer is efficiently re-processed by referring to the pieces of information. In addition, since the information associated with the wafer includes information for specifying the lot of the wafer, the lots of recovered wafers can be managed in units of slots.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is also provided a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus having exposure means for sequentially loading wafers, exposing the wafers, and unloading the wafers, and recovery means for recovering a wafer exposed or being exposed in a carrier in a predetermined case, wherein when it is determined in recovering the wafer that the wafer to be recovered is the first wafer to be recovered in a lot to which the wafer belongs, and a wafer is already present in the carrier, the recovery means outputs a message and then recovers the wafer to be recovered in a new carrier upon detecting that the new carrier is set in place of the carrier.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is also provided a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus comprising the steps of sequentially loading wafers, exposing the wafers, and unloading the wafers by exposure means of this semiconductor manufacturing apparatus, when recovery means is to recover a wafer exposed or being exposed in a carrier in a predetermined case, and a message is output upon determining that the wafer to be recovered is the first wafer to be recovered in a lot to which the wafer belongs, and a wafer is already present in the carrier, setting a new carrier in place of the carrier in accordance with the output, and recovering the wafer to be recovered by the recovery means.
According to the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus or device manufacturing method according to another aspect of the present invention, since recovered wafers of different lots are prevented from being simultaneously present in one carrier, the recovered wafers can be efficiently re-processed. In other words, the lots of the recovered wafers can be managed in units of carriers.
Hence, according to the present invention, lot management of recovered wafers can be selected from management in units of carriers and that in units of slots.
Other features and advantages of the present invention will be apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like reference characters designate the same or similar parts throughout the figures thereof.